


From Beneath the Calm Belt

by The_Nazarene



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Blood, Blood Kink, Body Horror, College, Death, F/M, Heterosexual Sex, Lovecraftian, Murder, Oral Sex, Ritual Sex, eldritch horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2020-04-08 08:07:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19103113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Nazarene/pseuds/The_Nazarene
Summary: Brilliant medical student Trafalgar Law has his world turned upside down after encountering a mysterious young woman. Nico Robin promises him the answers to the secrets of The Void Century, but some knowledge is best left forgotten.





	1. The Romance and The Horror

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty much everything about this story is inspired by the writings and writing style of H.P. Lovecraft. A conclusion is going to follow soon. It's just really hard because while I like his ideas on cosmic horror, his writing style kind of sucks. And I'm an idiot for trying to just flat out imitate it.

We live on a small world that is shrouded in mystery. There are some who call this ignorance a curse inflicted upon the people, and struggle to expose it to the greater population. I see it differently, because unlike groups like the Revolutionaries have never actually seen through the mists into the true history of the Void Century. I used to be like them, desperately grasping at grains of fact. But I have left the island of ignorance that is our world into the phantasmagoric black seas of a new world and to my horror, I cannot go back. Gods forgive me for what I have done and what I must do next. I haven't loaded the pistol yet and I haven't decided whether to put it in my mouth or against my head. As soon as I finish this manuscript I will do the deed, but this warning must be given. That within this world of god-like warriors and pirates with the powers of devils, there are worse things on heaven and earth. 

The World Government has been right all along, that the Void Century is best forgotten. Their greatest fear has been the release of the Great Weapons upon the world, but even their awareness of the truth goes so far. I think that were it in their power they would scour the seas and erase every trace of the Poneglyphs, the weapons, and just sit back and pray that no one else found them. Even Roger agreed that his execution was better than risking the true nature of the world being exposed, but even still the experience had broken his mind. Why else would he shout out the madness he did while kneeling on the headsman's block? Maybe he just didn't care, since his knowledge of the thing was going to be snuffed out. His conscience was clear, as is mine knowing I've reached the same conclusion as the Pirate King.

To help understand why I am taking such a drastic measure as this, I feel I must explain how events in my life had reached the point that they have. I came from a family of doctors and as such I was expected to continue the tradition. And I did so with great relish, mastering the basics of human anatomy and surgery at a a young age. When my father felt there was no more for me to learn, he contacted a family friend named Rosinante from the Doflomingo family to act as a guardian while I advanced my studies. With his help, I was able to expand my fields of expertise even further until I was old enough to enroll in the Miskatonic University on the island of Arkham. I will never forget the pride in his face when I showed him the acceptance letter and how he had bragged to his brother that his prized ward had entered the most prestigious place of learning in the entire world. On the day I was to leave he presented me with a gift: a Devil Fruit. 

At the time he had said, "Law, I've done all that I can to prepare you for this. As a final gift to you I will give you two things. First is this fruit, the Ope Ope no Mi. With your knowledge and skill, this will guarantee that you will become the greatest surgeon who ever lived. Eat it in good health and think of me whenever you use it. For the second gift, I will give you a warning. Beware who you make friends with at Miskatonic. The school is prestigious, but that also means that it draws those who wish to study a variety of strange and esoteric subjects. Even if they themselves might mean well, their chosen focus might be more dangerous than a pistol held to your head. Be careful, Trafalgar. You are brilliant, but you must make sure to use your knowledge for the betterment of the world. Do not stray from the path you are already on, for there are many temptations and pursing them could damage not just you but the entire world."

I took his words to heart, still believing that my success would change the world if I just focused my mind on my studies. I made friends at the school. Shachi, Penguin, and a bear Mink named Bepo. They all had their own personal branches of study, but we found common ground in our personal passions. Eventually, after our first term at Miskatonic, we decided to board together at the famed Witch House. Shachi and Penguin were both avid students of folklore and the esoteric and claimed that the local legends around the house involved human sacrifice, witches, and pacts with demons beyond our realm of existence. While these stories certainly had an effect on Bepo's weak constitution, we resolved that this would make a fine place for our future studies as we for our upcoming thesis projects. Perhaps this move more than any other was what sealed my fate. For all the urban legends that surrounded the Witch House, it certainly had an air of the weird all to itself. I noticed that the geometry of the rooms were odd and it would have some strange effects on what happened when I used my Devil Fruit. I could set up a ROOM and simply... FEEL things beyond the scope of the area I had created. I one time tried to reach out for one of these things from beyond and after I saw it I blacked out. Bepo claimed he heard a scream in the night and found me passed out on the floor clutching what he claimed was a "hunk of rotten meat." I couldn't remember what I had seen or touched, but the primal terror I felt trying to recall the memory convinced me that it was best left forgotten. Only now do I realize that it should have been the end of my experiments.

It was midway through our third term that she arrived. Her name was Nico Robin, and she was searching for cheap room and board as she studied at Miskatonic. Something we could all relate to. I was instantly captivated by her. She was beautiful. That was putting it lightly. Words can't really do justice to the first time you lay eyes on the person you love. Even knowing what I know now, I would do it all over again. I instantly was in favor of letting her take one of the unoccupied rooms in the Witch House. Bepo agreed, but he always seemed to side with me. Shachi took Penguin's side and if I am being true to myself, he made a strong point. Even now, I can hear his warnings.

Penguin had said, "Have you really never heard the family name of Nico? Or even specifically, Nico Robin? They say she's from Ohara, the island of scholars. Do you know what they did there? Ignore the World Government's version of events, even people who lived near Ohara had claimed that they practiced the most bizarre of research on that island. It's said the Government attacked them because they looked too far into the Void Century, but there are even professors at this university who research that forgotten time. No one has ever made a Buster Call on Arkham. Consider what it is that they must have found. What could be so awful that a handful of learned men and women had to die along with an entire island's population? They say Nico Robin is one of the few survivors, but HOW? How is it that she lived? She claims to have merely been off island at the time, but then why does the Government insist there are no survivors? Law, I know that this final decision will come down to you. I know you're smitten with her, it was written on your face from the minute she crossed the threshold. I just want you to think with your head, and not only with your loins."

I slept on the matter, but Robin came to me in my dreams. There was just something about her I was drawn to. Of course I'd heard about Ohara. I'd heard the stories. How they had found the secrets of life on this world. How they had communed with forces beyond the scope of any living being. Rumors even persisted that they mated with creatures from the sea. Not the fishmen, mind you. Something older, more primal, and something nowhere near the level of humanity. To put it in a way my own scientific mind can still comprehend: fishmen share the same blood types as other humanoids. The things that the scholars of Ohara were said to consort with bled only fire and their offspring left nothing but death in their wake. My curiosity won out over the advice of my friends. Of course, I allowed Nico Robin to rent the empty room of the Witch House.

For the first few weeks, none of us saw her. The room she insisted on had an especially peculiar geometry to it and that seemed to play a factor in Robin's activities. I paid it little heed, though my roommates seemed to feel unease when she was around. I was too enraptured by her, even though she rarely spoke at meals. But one day, she saw me experimenting with my Devil Fruit. After that it seemed whenever I was in the house she would not be far from me. Always watching. I didn't mind. If you could see a woman as beautiful as her, you certainly wouldn't mind the attention. I began finding my studies easier. Experiments with my Devil Fruit powers became nearly flawless, constantly achieving what I wanted. While I knew that somehow, SHE was responsible for my new found success I couldn't vocalize it. Until the day she dropped all pretense and spoke to me.

There was nothing subtle about her approach. She was curious about my power and had noticed how it interacted with the weird energies inside the Witch House. Whether it was the geometry or something else, she did not know. But she mentioned her mother had been seeking something similar before the Buster Call. From then on, Nico Robin was my constant companion. She shadowed me whenever she could. 

"Law," she said to me one day. "Law, do you know the stories about Ohara? How the elders of the island summoned devils from the sea? How they learned the great truths to the universe? To existence itself? I'm here to see if that was all true. I think it is. If it wasn't would it really be worth genocide over? Since I was an orphaned child, I've dreamed of finding the truth. The whole, complete truth and here... in this house... seeing what your powers can do here... I think it's possible. Together we can fracture the lie of reality and see what lies beyond the pale. Have you never imagined what lies beneath the waves of the Calm Belt?"

I was too smitten to deny her after this speech. Gone were my free days as any period not spent in class was spent with Robin. I had been impressed with the collection of books owned by Rosinante or my father... Nico Robin had books that conventional wisdom said had been destroyed long before either of us were born. But what did I care? I was both smitten and being shown a world of knowledge I had never had access to. I spent more and more time with her and before long, we began a more... physical relationship. And gods help me, it was more fulfilling than anything I had done to that point in my life. They say that sex will ruin anyone... perhaps that's true. But even now I would still throw away my soul for a night in bed with Nico Robin.

Around this consummation of our physical relationship, my friends could not help but notice. They tried an intervention, reminding me that she was the last apparent scion of a truly decadent order. They even went so far as to bring Rosinante to our home and he also warned me against her. "Ohara was a tragedy, but not for the reasons you think," he had said. "No one employs a Buster Call without strong reason. Do you know of the half-dead? I don't mean the zombies that supposedly haunt the Florian Triangle either. They say that the scholars of Ohara found ways to tap into truly old knowledge. The rumor was that they learned how to raise the dead to a full flesh and blood form. And that the offspring produced from a coupling would have powers unimaginable. No, I'm not saying Robin is the product of such copulation. But what I am saying is that there was truth behind the rumors of Ohara decadence and you would do well to beware of those who feel no shame claiming that heritage. We might scorn the policies of the World Government, but they do not attempt to wipe out an entire culture out of hand."

I thought long and hard about what Rosinante told me. For about three days. On the third day, I found myself back in the bed of Robin. I'm not to cultured to say that our love making was anything more than lust filled fucking. Animals in rut would blush at how we conducted ourselved. Was it love? Was it a sudden urge for outright rebellion? I do not know, but over this period of time I determined that no woman would fill my life like Nico Robin did. I would rather have died then. When I realized how deep my feelings for her ran, I used my powers to give her my own heart as a gift. I was hers, forever and always.

She laughed when I did this. And then blew me like I'd never been sucked off before. Afterwards, I used my Fruit powers to remove my heart and give it to her. She laughed again and branded her name into it. Through the pain, I never felt so happy. I was hers, forever and always. For better or worse.

The days of our passion became weeks and they became months. It was all a blur to me though I will never forget the day Robin told me of her home. Of Ohara. She claimed that the stories had been true. The Oharans had unlocked the secrets of the world we lived in. That under the waves things lived deeper than Fishman Island. Things older than even Sea Kings. And they had come from outside our world. During the void century, the ancients had created the great weapons to put them to sleep but only managed to destroy everything else in the process. When I asked how the Oharans had found this knowledge she said to me:

"Law, the things from beyond never left. They just went to sleep. The people of Ohara strove always forward toward the promise that knowledge would open the secrets of this world to them. They strained all the power their five feeble senses could muster in all directions. And then something answered. Can you imagine? You spend your life following in the footsteps of your fore bearers and you are the generation who unlocks the answers to everything? I think in a way the World Government was right to do what they did. Truth be told no one is ready for this knowledge. I'm the last who knows the truth. And I want to share it with you Law. You're special, you're beautiful, and you alone seek the wisdom that my friends and family all sought. Listen. The things from beyond... no, from _beneath_ the Calm Belt... they have no physical form in this world anymore. But they can be restored. I can teach you, Law. I can show you things you never imagined seeing. I can answer everything that this world and the ones outside this sphere have to offer. You were so quick to pledge your heart to me over the fleeting pleasures of physical love. I am now offering you knowledge and power beyond the scope of mortal man. Will you help me?"

Of course I couldn't refuse her. 

From there on out our love making began to take a more... ritualistic air. Candles. Incense I didn't recognize. Robin taught me the appropriate chants. The deeper we got the more I realized how much blood played a huge factor in the rituals. Mine. Hers. Mingling together as our bodies were intertwined. Somehow the patterns she directed me to scar into her back while I fucked her from behind... god have mercy on a weak man. Have you ever cut into the flesh of someone you loved only to hear moans of pleasure? To see their blood trickle out as they push back trying to force your genitals deeper inside of them? I have and in those patterns I traced I saw not just the cusp of the true face of the world, I saw love. Love unholy, yes. But still love. I don't know if it was a spell she had cast on me. Maybe I was too blinded by passion to even question what I was doing. I know Shachi and Penguin both tried to speak to me, to say that this relationship was unhealthy. That Robin was manipulating me. But of course I didn't listen. Why would I turn away now when the gates of knowledge had merely cracked open. And the palace of earthly delights was flung open to me in all of it's glory. Does a man need friendship when he had carnal pleasure and the truth of the universe staring him in the face all at once? Of course not.

Shachi came to me one day and from his demeanor I could tell that he was more determined to reach me. "Law," he said. "Law, you're being played for a fool. You're thinking less with your head and more with your loins. Can't you see this woman is using you? I spoke with one of the professors in the humanities department. Maybe you know him, Armitage? He has sources who had been to Ohara who told him before it's destruction it had become degenerate. That something unnatural had crept into the island and tainted the blood of those there. Even their very soul. That things from deep beneath the waves came to the surface to offer terrifying secrets in exchange for the chance to mate with the islanders. No, not Fishmen, you fool! Have you not heard that there are parts of the sea deeper than even Neptune's family have fathomed? That no one can sail to those depths and come back alive or remain sound of mind? If she is of that same ancestry... of that same system of belief? Law, you're like my brother. Please, get out before you can." 

I took his words to heart. Shachi was one of my closest and dearest friends. I trusted him deeply and spent some days away from the Witch House to collect my thoughts. When I returned to speak with my flatmate, Penguin and Bepo informed me that Shachi had received an urgent message and had to leave immediately. They were unsure of it's nature but assumed it concerned a family matter as it had made him extremely agitated. I was, however, resolved to speak with Robin. Something about the intensity in how he had spoken his piece reached the part of my mind that was still sane. He had cast a lifeline out for my soul and somehow I had laid a finger on it. This was perhaps my last chance before damnation. When I spoke to Robin, she seemed almost glib.

"Shachi had spoken to me about something similar. And I agreed with him, if I'm being honest. It was never Fishmen that visited our homes at night on the equinoxes. There was some definite foolishness on the part of the Oharans. If they'd been smart and not so... fanatical? So open. Yes, that's the word. Open. Were they less open, perhaps they'd have achieved their goals and we could have reached the intellectual nirvana they sought. But they didn't. The leaders. My family. They were fools. We're not fools, Law. We can finally make this happen. For I have discovered the keys to freeing those from beneath."

As she said that she pulled from a satchel a bloody hand. Inside, I could see the remains of a human arm. She said to me, "While you were gone, I had a vision. The true gods of this world finally answered. They want a host. They asked that we... you and I, Law! They asked us to build a host for them. A vessel. But it requires fresh components. Fresh is hard to come by. So I have taken the liberty of finding some for us already. I think that the former owner of this arm would be pleased to see you find happiness. Law, do you hear me? This is what your Devil Fruit power is for! This is your purpose! We can build a fine host to give life to those from beneath again..."

We made love again, and my passion-bound mind ignored the fact that some of the... pieces in her bag were clothed in a manner familiar to me. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. We were young and would soon reach beyond the veil of existing knowledge.

Casualties were inevitable.


	2. Love's Call to the Abyss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion of Law's tale, as he recounts his further spiral into madness as Robin leads him further toward a terrible fate for the entire world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a long time coming and it was mostly because nothing I was writing I was happy with. I'm still not entirely sure I'm happy with this, but it's now finished. I will probably never attempt something like this again because it's freaking exhausting lol. This almost went to three chapters, but I said nah at the last minute before hitting post.

Three months seemingly passed in a blur after the night Robin showed me the contents of what was in her blood soaked bag. Three full months that I used to convince myself that it was just some form of mad illusion that my unsettled mind had played on me. Shachi was gone. No one knew where he went and I there was no way I could say that I had hallucinated his butchered body in a burlap sack. That was insanity. I couldn't dare implicate the woman I loved in a kidnapping and murder based on something that I believed wasn't real. And if it was real, I would be confessing to participating in the violent death in one of my best friends. Instead, I tried to throw myself back into my medical studies, but my weary mind wasn't up to the task. The things that I had seen in the preceding months had opened terrifying vistas of esoteric knowledge that I couldn't tear my eyes away from. By day, I struggled to keep up with the basics of hospital care, anatomy, and pharmaceuticals. By night, I joined my love to pour over decrepit looking tomes. Together, I felt, we were piecing together the true story of the Void Century and beyond.

I know that Bepo and Penguin were still concerned for my health. They were with me every moment when Robin was not, trying to reach out to me. They didn't understand the depths of my obsessions; both with the woman and our nightly studies. Yet somehow, my friends still seemed to realize that there was a danger of my very soul being swallowed by a fathomless abyss and they desperately tried to pull me back from it. Even here, at the end, I am grateful for their loyalty. 

The pair soon found themselves torn however. During those long weeks since Shachi's disappearance, strange events began occurring around the island of Arkham. Firstly, the local newspapers started reporting about mysterious figures that were being spotted nightly in the back alleys of the town. No one ever got a good look at them, but their sizes seemed to grow from each passing sighting. What started as a figure no taller than knee height, the later reports described people who may as well be giants. Hulking and misshapen, the tabloid writers coined the term Shamblers for these people on account of their dragging footsteps. Many people suspected these figures to be some new pirate crew as in the Grand Line, individuals came in all manner of strange forms. It was these rumors of pirates that caused people to link the Shamblers to the sudden rise in missing people.

I think when investigators go back and start to review this case they'll find that the sensationalist stories of Shamblers were merely a distraction. The early disappearances weren't reported because no one cared to notice that the destitute of Arkham were simply vanishing without a trace during this time. Some inspectors in the constabulary tried pointing out the warning signs of a larger spree of kidnappings, but they were never given much credence. Would anything have changed it they did? Maybe the timeline of this tragedy would have sped up. Regardless, even I was barely aware of these outside events as I was so deep into my obsession with Robin and her seemingly boundless access to forbidden wisdom. It was worth everything to me. Losing friends. Losing sleep. And losing even my own self to the madness of the bare truths of the universe laid out before me. I found the lack of sleep to be the most trying test, as it seemed whenever I closed my eyes I would wake up screaming at some unremembered nightmare that had revealed itself to me. 

My friends, bless them, were only concerned for my well being. And their love for me caused them to seek out my caretaker for help. I walked in on them one night in deep conversation with Corazon. I had nearly forgotten the man in my obsession, but catching him in hushed conversation with Penguin and Bepo jarred me to my very soul. What would he say if he knew the truth? Would he renounce me? How would he himself react to the idea that he'd gifted the Ope Ope no Mi to someone who would abuse it so badly? That he barely even acknowledged me the next morning, cut me deeply. I'd betrayed him and made an enemy of one of my closest mentors. Surely, he'd kill me if he knew the extent to which I'd allowed things to go. I wonder if I game my friends too much credit. Corazon's arrival put me too much on guard and heightened my paranoia. At this time, there was no real reason to believe that they suspected me but my tortured brain convinced me otherwise. Robin helped push this delusion, hinting that they had all turned against me. I realized later that they merely thought that my constitution wouldn't stand up against the truth of what happened to Shachi. To what Robin was planning to use my powers for. Corazon loved me too much to think I was anything other than an unwitting pawn in a game I couldn't comprehend. I hope if he ever reads this that he realizes he was right.

Corazon's inattention to me hurt more than I can find the words to express. The realization that perhaps my friends had begun to suspect me stung, but I tried preparing myself for the eventual moment when they would betray me. But the added twist that my mentor, the man who had molded so much of my identity to this point, was now possibly conspiring against what Robin and I were trying to achieve. I raged at this prospect, cursing the man who had been like a father to me. But after a night of blind rage and tearing my room apart, I came to a realization. Corazon loved me and I him. I had confided in him when it came to all things and he always had shown me the utmost confidence. Surely, if I was able to properly explain to him what Robin and I were doing he would agree with us. The Doflamingos, though nobles, were no friends of the World Government. If anyone else on this world could understand the importance of what we were trying to do, it would be Corazon.

I made this suggestion to Robin, but in her kind way she persuaded me against this. "My love," she said, "Do you really think that your warden would understand what you're doing? For what purpose do you think he's here? I've paid attention to your friends, even if you might still trust them implicitly. Law, they called him here to stop us. To talk you down from the great heights you've climbed. They fear the knowledge you've uncovered. And what more you will uncover if we continue down our path." Her honeyed voice dripped into my ear like poison, but I couldn't resist.

"Law, I think I need to tell you now the part you can play in this. And it is only you who can do it. And only you can do it because the man who has come here to stop you, if not kill you, gave you the very means to tearing down the lie this world is built upon. I told you of the Others. Those from Beneath this sphere of reality, no longer possess physical form. It's impossible for them to exist in this world, so they need their physical bodies to be constructed. A human or beast form isn't enough. There needs to be... rituals and surgeries performed with it. And then the Other needs to be brought here. Your Devil Fruit can bring them here, if you're in places with the right energies. You did it in the Witch House didn't you? You brought something through, yes? Law, with your skills in medicine and the powers at your command you could do something which hidden sages have spent centuries only dreaming about. You could revive those From Beneath and bring about a new age on this world."

Robin's words drove me even further down this mad path as she ended them with an impassioned kiss. After another session of love making, she told me the last piece of the puzzle. My fruit could unlock the gate. She could provide the bodies. But we needed one final piece. A book, that was kept in the Miskatonic University Library. Some grimoire that once belonged to an ancient alchemist named Eibon. Robin suspected that the most complete version of the needed ritual would be found there. The Necronomicon would be preferred, but Robin insisted that the copy held by the school was a translation by some ancient D that was inaccurate to say the least. However, when I went to the library to examine the tome I received news that shook me so badly that I strained to maintain composure while at the desk. Corazon had spoken to the director of the school's collection and upon his request, several books of an occult nature had been placed on restricted access. Only special permission could be granted and only when approved by the head librarian or Corazon. This was it, this was the betrayal I was too afraid to look at. My mentor knew all of our plans and was actively trying to stop us! But even even if this betrayl furthered my resolve to complete the ritual Robin asked of me, it saddened me knowing that she had been right about him. 

That very night I donned my darkest clothes and using my Devil Fruit, I broke into the library and stole the Book of Eibon. I should have seen the trap coming, but still I was caught off guard by the site of Penguin and Bepo leveling pistols at me. Each of them determined, but still pleading with me to stop. I fled from them, but on my escape path ran into Corazon himself. The man who had taught me everything I knew and now was my mortal enemy. He didn't say anything to me, but his eyes expressed to me all the emotion in his own soul. The shame, the confusion, the determination, and the revolve to do what he needed to do. He raised his hand to me. But I didn't give him an instant. With the power of the Ope Ope no Mi, I tore him to pieces. No careful incisions, just tearing. I knew it was painful, but I ripped him apart in a spray of blood and ran, cursed volume tucked under my arm.

Robin helped me wipe away the blood when I returned. She said nothing when she finished, just picked up the book and led me to the docks. She'd hired a boat, crewed by a group of smugglers who more than eager to lead us to our final destination. To the ruins of Ohara. To the altar that was still there. To the fane raised to those who came from beneath the Calm Belt.

I don't know how long the journey took. My mind was too clouded with confusion that any lucid moment I could find I spent huddled over the bloody Book of Eibon. I poured over charts, made calculations, and took notes on the ritual necessary. I only ate when Robin brought me food and I did all I could to ignore the sinister crew who stalked about the deck. They deferred quickly to Robin's commands, but gave me a wide berth as if I carried some vile plague. Maybe murder is a disease that leaves permanent stains on one's body. But still the demeanor of the smugglers she had hired made me more than uncomfortable. Worse still were the sounds that emanated from the holds below decks. During the day there were only soft shuffling and whatever was down there moved about. Robin called whatever down there "the cattle for the sacrifice," but at night the moans and whispers I heard from underneath the deck sounded like no livestock I knew of. One night, when the noises were so loud it was like a pounding in my skull. I crept from the bunk I was sharing with Robin, and peeked in the hold. I didn't sleep the rest of that night. Or the next night. I now understood the origin of the supposed Shamblers from back on Arkham Island. A glimpse was all I needed as the hulking monstrosities all turned toward the door as moonlight poured through. The night noises stopped, but whenever I did sleep I was haunted by a familiar face with red hair that I had seen before I slammed the door shut again. The familiar red haired face had an almost accusatory glare to it.

In the midst of these night terrors and compulsory studying of the Book, I didn't even notice the commotion that broke out on deck. Apparently, a Marine ship had been sighted in pursuit and it sent the crew into a flurry of panicked activity. Robin especially seemed to grow paler. I knew that the window we had to accomplish our goals was shrinking. Then as if blinking had shifted my perspective, I looked around to find our ship docked in a rubble strewn cay. The ruins of Ohara, the crew were arming themselves and readying cannons as the massive Marine battleship bore down on us. It looked as if there were maybe more on the horizon. I noticed that Robin was trying to pull me toward the gangway. She kept insisting the sacrifice was ready. It was time. It had to be now or all the death and horror would be for nothing.

She led me down through a cave entrance, lit only by a torch that she held. We seemed to go down for miles and miles and miles. We must have gone so deep, I imagined we'd reached below the sea floor. The lower the path led us I glimpsed horrors just beyond the flickering torchlight. There were paintings of ancient terrors. Bas-reliefs of abominations reigning over the seas and the islands of this world. Spreading wanton destruction and death upon small, kneeling figures. Robin had promised me a chance at discovering the truth of the world, and she had not lied. But that truth was a hideous nightmare, the likes of which I could never have dreamed. And as she brought me into a massive antechamber, led me to an altar, and began shouting instructions at me the last shred of my waking mind rose to the surface. As I stood there before a yawning pit, filled with the pitiable moans of the hideous Shamblers, I knew that this wasn't bringing justice to the World Government or freedom to the people of this world. I would be bringing death. Pitiless, cruel, horrific death. Robin pushed a ceremonial dagger in my hands as I resolved to do the only thing in my power.

I started keeping this journal at some point during the voyage to Ohara. Do not try and make sense of the formulas I have written inside it, they can only extend this madness rather than end it. I understand that many will want to retain this document as a record, but I would plead with whoever is leading the Marine's attack party to destroy it. Robin's body, I threw into the pit after I slit her throat. I don't know if there will be any remains, for I don't know what the Shamblers eat. The beasts, such as they are, should be destroyed as well. Though those from Beneath need someone to perform the final ritual to take them as forms for themselves, but who knows what other evil lurks in this world who may take advantage. Kill them, and burn the bodies and then dissolve the ashes in acid. Do the same with Robin's corpse, provided they haven't devoured it. I will be slitting my wrists shortly and using my knowledge of anatomy I will make sure that my end is swift. Perhaps I don't deserve such a death for all the pain and suffering I am responsible for. But the longer that I live, the greater the risk to this sphere of existence. May the gods, such as they are, allow my Devil Fruit to not spawn again into the possession of someone who would use it with such abandon again. To Bepo and Penguin, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for betraying you and not trusting you. I'm sorry that I'm leaving you with more questions than answers. I know that you above all still loved and trusted me and I spat on that in a paranoid frenzy. I do not expect your forgiveness, but only ask you to fulfill my requests. 

The Shambers are moaning and crying again. They're begging me to release the Others. To give their deaths meaning. Shachi's voice is especially strong. I do not wish to hear them any longer, so I shall finish this manuscript and do the deed. Gods! To think transcribing a note for one's own death would drag on for so long! Ironic that I barely hesitated long enough to halt the genocide of all life on this planet, but my own suicide note is nothing but purple prose and vagarities. Enough!


End file.
